


Rakghoul

by I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: (Obi-Wan for Qui-Gon), Amputation Mentioned, Body Horror, Deathfic, Denied Request for Assisted Suicide (to avoid zombiehood), Gen, Graphic Bone Breaking, M/M, Medical Horror, Monster horror, Qui-Gon Jinn Lives, Unrequited Love, exposed brain, tragic ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:33:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21769177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning
Summary: A mission to Taris goes wrong. Knight Obi-Wan is infected. Qui-Gon has to make decisions concerning his fate.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn & Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 14
Kudos: 86





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The gross factor is pretty high with this one. Think graphic zombie descriptions, only as rakghoul instead.

A quick gasp from behind had Qui-Gon spinning around, expecting to see yet another Rakghoul.

Instead, he found Obi-Wan, one foot splayed to the side where it had slid, Obi-Wan's palm pressed against debris for support, having kept him from falling further.

Obi-Wan pulled his hand away, and the shard beneath was painted crimson.

Qui-Gon's heart bolted into his throat.

Obi-Wan's hand began to shake as he stared down at his glove, the tear through the middle, and the open wound beneath.

When he looked up, he didn't look like the thirty-two-year-old Knight that he was... he looked terrified.

“You took the vaccine,” Qui-Gon reminded, almost harsh in his tone. “You're _fine_.”

Obi-Wan managed a nod, and the glimpse of a terrified padawan vanished, revealing again the man the child had grown into. “Forward, then?”  
“The mission's not done.”

Another nod, but Obi-Wan fell silent as they walked on.

It hadn't been fifteen minutes when another sound struck Qui-Gon's ear, that of a body striking the ground.

Qui-Gon paused, afraid to look around, but forced himself to do so.

Obi-Wan hadn't slipped this time. No, he lay on the ground clutching his head, his entire body wracked with spasms, pain and distress turning the Force around him brittle.

_No._

Obi-Wan looked up, forced his hands to the floor, away from his head. “I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I'm sorry.”

Qui-Gon sat beside him, guiding the shaking sufferer into his arms. Obi-Wan's skin felt fever-hot to Qui-Gon's touch, and lines of torment carved deep into his face.

“Easy, Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon murmured, though his throat wanted to close up. “Just rest.”

“I need to know you won't let me hurt anyone,” Obi-Wan pleaded. “I need to know you won't let me hurt _you._ I need you to end it, I need...”

“I promise. I won't let you infect another.”

Obi-Wan closed his eyes, and he looked both broken and relieved. “I have to tell you something, I—”

“Obi-Wan—”

“No. You'll never know, if I don't tell you, you'd _never know._ I love you. I know you still see me as your padawan, that you could never, but... you asked me why I didn't leave for Satine, and I said I would tell you someday, and— you would never _know—_ ”

He seized, and Qui-Gon clung to him, bewildered and his heart breaking. He didn't... he didn't see him that way, Obi-Wan was right. His love for his former apprentice was not romantic, but it was deep and fierce, and this was a _horrible_ way to die.

Qui-Gon could hear the crack of bones, and the shocked scream that tore out of Obi-Wan drove the first tears from Qui-Gon's eyes.

They had seen the transformation in others...

They both knew what to expect.

Obi-Wan's forearm splintered, the splinters spearing up through skin like spines.

“I don't want you to see this,” Obi-Wan rasped through shallow, labored breaths. “I want to be alone. Please, put me in the next room, let me meet this alone. I would like for you to think I was brave, that I faced the end well. Please... let me have that one last vanity.”

“Of course,” Qui-Gon choked. “Goodbye, my Obi-Wan.”

“Take care of my padawan, he's not ready for this. He will suffer, he—”

“I will take Anakin, I will watch over him. Breathe, Obi-Wan, fall asleep.”

Qui-Gon slipped past shattering defenses, pressed his will against Obi-Wan's mind.

“Let go,” Qui-Gon breathed.

Obi-Wan choked in one more breath before his mind shut down in sleep.

Qui-Gon kept pushing.

The destructing body kept shuddering, but Obi-Wan's awareness sank deeper, deeper—

Qui-Gon stopped when Obi-Wan fell unconscious.

_There is no need for you to feel this._

Qui-Gon, so far inside Obi-Wan's shields, felt it as Obi-Wan's skull began to fracture.

Qui-Gon recoiled from the connection in their minds, watched in anguish as Obi-Wan's head changed shape. His brain swelled up, parts of it dying from the pressure, from the twisting.

Obi-Wan's facial bones broke so far as to make him utterly unrecognizable, and ginger hair fell from skin. His hands swelled up, the bones expanding and gnarling, the bone cutting through fingertips, looking nearly like claws.

With hands so mutilated, so destroyed, even the most basic of delicate tasks would be beyond him.

Qui-Gon gently placed him on the floor, then stood up and stepped back.

If bone splintered out and speared _him..._

_Then Anakin will never know what happened to us._

It would be easy to guess, they'd gone to Taris after all, but to find the _truth..._

Obi-Wan's Force-signature was changing, dulling, breaking apart. His boots split as his feet warped, the out of control bone growth too insistent for even leather.

Qui-Gon looked away, gritting his teeth.

And then all was still.

A single sob escaped Qui-Gon, and then he braced his shoulders and turned around.

A rakghoul lay unconscious on the ground, Jedi tunics and tabbards still wrapped around it.

Around _him._

Obi-Wan had wanted, had expected for Qui-Gon to kill it— _him—_ in self-defense, and to protect the Tarisian colonists.

_I can't. I am sorry, my Obi-Wan._

But he _would_ keep his promise; he would keep them all safe.

Lifting the broken body in his arms, Qui-Gon continued in the direction of their ship.

* * *

“How could you _do this_?” Anakin screamed, striking his fist against Qui-Gon's chest.

Qui-Gon staggered, stunned by the sixteen-year-old's anguish.

“He's _gone!_ I felt our _bond break,_ and I can feel _that thing,_ and now you're just going to _keep him in a cage_ forever, to be _experimented on?_ How can you _do_ that to him?” Anakin's rage went out of him like a popped bubble, and he collapsed against Qui-Gon, shuddering with tears.

“I could not kill him. I could not leave him there, to wander alone forever.”

Anakin peered at the containment room, with its wall of glass, and the monster stirring within it.

“If they can find a way to bring him back....” Qui-Gon whispered.

Anakin shook his head and closed his eyes again, tight. “He's not coming back. You're just making him suffer longer. You put him in a _cage._ Forever.”

He pulled away from Qui-Gon, looking so small and frail.

* * *

Pain.

Oh, gods, so _much_ of it, in every joint and every bone and every breath.

And hunger, such a terrible, destroying hunger, and a burning need to find contact, somehow, somewhere—

Movement.

He tried to clear his eyes, but everything was blurry and wouldn't resolve. He stumbled toward the motion, only to hit something hard, before even reaching it. He tried again, found his way still blocked. He raised a hand, trying to reach through or past, but his hand hit with a dull thud, and his claws scraped against the solid nothingness.

More movement.

Oh gods, come _here,_ he needed _something to ease_ the torment, a comforting hand, or a meal, or something warm and slick to wrap himself up in, head to toe, to ease the burning— _please—_

A noise escaped him.

Even the noise hurt.

He was so isolated, so alone, and there was a fire in his blood, a heat he could not escape.

_Please...._

_Please._

* * *

Obi-Wan walking into the glass, trying to reach out to Anakin, a mindless hunger, no recognition in the Force at all...

So unable to grasp the concept of glass...

Anakin turned broken eyes to Qui-Gon, and walked away.

Qui-Gon looked to where a researcher threw a slab of nerf through an access hatch from above.

Nostrils flared, all focus shifted to the food, and the creature that had once been Obi-Wan fell upon it, struggling to use its hands at first, and then giving up, simply employing teeth.

Qui-Gon reached out to him, trying to find what had once been a bond.

_Obi-Wan?_

Not even a flinch in response. No recognition, not even a flicker of understanding that he was being hailed.

_Perhaps Anakin is right, and I am being too cruel. Perhaps it would be kinder to grant you death. To..._

But even Anakin, who was horrified by Obi-Wan's future beneath med lights, being studied and used....

_Could he put a saber through your heart? Because I can't._

Maybe it was cruel.

But that guilt was the one he was going to live with, instead of the guilt of murdering his beloved former padawan.

_But I swear I will watch these researchers closely; I won't let them torment you._

Though already Obi-Wan was suffering. That much was easy to feel in the Force, it was so loud and clear.

So that last promise probably had more to do with Qui-Gon sleeping well at night than Obi-Wan.

Qui-Gon placed his palm against the glass, bowed his head, and grieved.

_Come back to me someday, Obi-Wan._

_Please._


	2. Chapter 2

“Obi-Wan... Anakin's leaving the Order. He's going back to Tatooine, to help his mother. He's not been the same, since you... I'm sorry. We lasted a month, but he's turned his saber in to the Council, and he's packing his things.”

Qui-Gon placed his palm against the glass, but the eyes that stared out at him held no recognition, just hunger.

“I want to go with him, make sure he's safe, but I can't leave you here, alone.”

Still no reaction.

Qui-Gon sighed. “You would rather I keep him safe.” He bowed his head, heard Obi-Wan's hand bump into the glass, trying to reach him again. Qui-Gon reached for him in the Force, hoping for  _anything_ that might signal Obi-Wan existed in there somewhere still.

He only found the gaping black hole of hunger and agony, need and isolation and hell.

“I will stay with him until I'm sure he can continue on his own. It might be years, Obi-Wan. I don't know when...  _if..._ I'll be back. I might not survive. You didn't. It would be folly to pretend I'm somehow invincible where you were not. I feel such  _guilt,_ at leaving you behind. I'm sorry, I know you're here, you're lingering because I willed it.”

Vacant, bloodshot eyes searched.

“Goodbye,” Qui-Gon whispered.

Then he turned and walked away.

* * *

It took five years. Anakin was twenty-one before Qui-Gon was able to leave him to his new life on Tatooine, the rather reckless life of a slave liberator.

Qui-Gon was endlessly proud of him.... and also had not a single brown hair left to his name. Thanks to Anakin, it was all a uniform slate gray.

He did not go to the Temple first; instead, he went straight to the ChanPal tower, down the long hall, and into the suite of study rooms that his palm print allowed him access to.

Family only, and all that.

They had accepted him as family, five years earlier.

A wretched scream met his ears as he stepped inside and the door hissed shut behind him. It made his pulse thunder in his ears, a jolt of terror and horror.

Had one of the researchers fallen  _in_ with Obi-Wan?

He raced forward, his knees stiff from the brutal desert, but if he could  _help,_ he  _had_ to—

He turned the corner to find three beings in white lab coats, calmly going about their tasks, and on a tilted up table, bound by bands of durasteel, was affixed a rakghoul.

The top of its skull had been cut away, exposing the brain beneath, and it seemed to be gnawing at its tongue in agony, blood dripping from its mouth.

“Up the dose,” someone murmured.

“ _Wait_ !” Qui-Gon snapped, feeling horror well up within him and seeing in the shocked, somewhat scared eyes of the techs before him a tall, broad man with flashing eyes and a loudly raised voice.

They seemed rather alarmed by him.

“We are working on a more secure vaccine. The samples we take are conquered by the vaccines already created, but when in a host, it is only somewhat reliable. We are trying to find out why, simultaneously design something that will save more lives, and we are also trying to understand just how much of a person remains inside.”

Qui-Gon stared to the monitors where trembling lines traced, and scans showing where parts of the brain lit up.

“There is a reaction when someone is talking nearby,  _different_ from other sounds that might also indicate food,” one of the scientists explained, some of the concern fading into subdued enthusiasm. “That suggests  _intelligence._ ” Qui-Gon even recognized her, but the beast's head was turning to Qui-Gon, murky eyes shifting, moving, moving...

_“Master,”_ Qui-Gon could almost hear his voice, echoing, faint,  _“just walk away.”_

“What you are doing to him is  _cruel,_ he is  _suffering,_ I can  _sense_ it, and surely even  _you can see it—_ ”

“We're running out of time. Necrosis has set in. We've already had to remove—”

But with that, Qui-Gon's gaze was running over the twisted body, noting the missing hand and several claw-like toes...

“We have never had a rakghoul survive this long in captivity before, and things always go  _wrong,_ horribly wrong with the research. Here, there have been none of the things that have happened before, and we have to get  _all we can_ before our window of opportunity closes. People are still dying out there, Master Jinn. People who could  _live_ if we just  _understood more_ about what's happening here.”

_“Walk away.”_

“What kinds of things go wrong?” Qui-Gon asked, his voice faltering. It was cruel of his mind to use that voice against him, to argue against saving  _his padawan..._

“Almost a rage. A need to hurt the handlers. This one is still dangerous, still tries to attack, but that seems connected to pain stimuli and hunger, we've had none of the random attacks like the others. Also, it does not struggle as much; we're able to get much more work accomplished since it doesn't have to be in a full restraint-field. And—”

“Like he's trying to help you.” Qui-Gon's heart seemed to slam through a grating, leaving a dripping disaster of shreds on the other side....

“There is evidence of  _some_ intelligence,” the woman warned, “but not  _that_ much. And honestly, being able to differentiate the sound of a voice from the sound of something scraping across the floor is not—”

But Qui-Gon wasn't listening, he was searching that mind, that presence in the Force, for something,  _anything_ familiar, anything at  _all._

_Should I have put you down, all those years ago?_ Qui-Gon's eyes blurred with tears.  _What was I thinking? Keep you alive, make you comfortable..._ how  _could you be comfortable while in such agony? And now there is even more, with them too desperate to only push you as far as you could stand..._

_If only I knew what you wanted._

_“I asked you to keep me from hurting anyone. You did that.”_

_But he meant kill him. He meant it, but I was purposely obtuse because I could not stand the thought._

But worst of all...

_I made that decision for you, but I was not here with you. You have suffered alone for years, and I was nowhere to be found._

No more.

Qui-Gon left, but only to bring in a chair.

He settled it in the far corner, out of the way, and then sat down in it, keeping quiet and simply watching, present in the moment.

The screaming had stopped, though the pain had not eased. The tongue was no longer being gnawed, and a wad of bacta-soaked gauze was permitted to rest in the mouth.

Qui-Gon knew he couldn't think that his presence was providing comfort.

More likely, the broken one had lost the energy to rail against the pain.

But Qui-Gon wished  _somehow, some_ of it could be alleviated by his presence.

_I will not leave you again. I will stay to the end, whatever the end may be._

And if he somehow snapped and got loose, tried to kill everyone here— a very real possibility—

_Then at that time, I_ will  _strike you, to keep you from harming these truth seekers._

_I will keep covenant with you, padawan._

_My knight._

_My brave, lost knight._


	3. Chapter 3

There were voices, and then stillness again, but something about the voices  _this_ time made some of the cruel isolation, the loneliness, ease.

_Why_ would be far too great a difficulty to discern, or even ask, but...

It almost felt like the eternal pain might end soon.

The rakghoul lay still, no longer felt so unbearably alone, and waited for the end.

* * *

“He is the oldest known rakghoul, he's lasted years longer than we thought they even could.”

Qui-Gon could  _feel_ the difference in the discussion, this time.

_Force grant me strength._

“It's been a month, you've been here almost the whole time, and I think.... I think we've gotten everything we're going to get. My team and I will try to cover up his spines so you can get close, because... he's now demonstrating the same indicators the others did. He has minutes, maybe a couple hours left. I thought you might like to be alone with him.”

He'd expected it, he'd  _seen_ the deterioration in the rakghoul today, just... weakness, less reaction to movements around... he'd rejected the food offered....

And his eyes had a film over them. And the smell had shifted.

From awful, to....

Well, Qui-Gon knew what Death smelled like. It was impossible to describe, but it was unmistakable once you knew it.

“Thank you,” Qui-Gon replied, voice rough from tears that couldn't seem to form yet.

He watched as they fused button-like protectors to the tips of each spine, and each of the teeth.

Obi-Wan didn't even react to hands in his mouth, where in days past he had at least  _tried_ to snap.

They took him down from the table, snapping glowing bands into place on the floor, just in case.

“You have your vaccination, and if you must touch him, there are these—” the scientist held out gloves that Qui-Gon readily donned, covering him from hand to above his elbows. “No direct skin contact, and above all,  _no_ fluid contact. He has open sores; watch out for them.”

Qui-Gon nodded, but when they were all gone and the section was sealed off again, he released the energy bonds and sat beside his broken knight, drawing him somewhat into his lap. Placing his hand on the upper arm, he soothed his thumb against the skin again and again.

For a long moment he couldn't find words.

Shudders whispered through the rakghoul, and occasionally the sound of a cut-off moan.

_I am sorry, my Obi-Wan._

A rasp entered the rakghoul's breathing, worsening with every inhale.

Qui-Gon sat with him until it fell silent, and then he sat longer with the dead, silent tears burning down his cheeks.

_Goodbye._


End file.
